Experimental Project

N°1

This is the first draft of a prologue that I am working on for a currently untitled project. It is an attempt to set the scene and timeline but also to provide some historical information regarding the world this story takes place in. Since this is a rough draft of my work I ask that you not distribute this text to others.

Prologue

“Good evening,” the clerk said, eyeing Verik’s shoulder patch and likely noting the plain green patch. “How can I help you?” Verik quickly pulled his gloves finger by finger, the leather, not yet worn smooth by years of wear and tear, tight against his hands. He placed them carefully on the stone counter of the theater’s ticket box and pulled out his pouch of coins and setting them beside his gloves, knocking one of them off in the process.

Behind the brass latticed grille, the clerk, a thin man whose spectacles caught the gaslight and threw it back in geometric fragments, looked up at Verik with the particular expression of someone accustomed to being patient with people.

“A ticket,” he said, and then, bent down to retrieve his fallen glove, “for the evening’s performance. The new work by...” He consulted a small card he’d kept in his breast pocket for three weeks, its edges soft from handling. “By Rimah Sari.”